How I find story ideas

My father was a great story teller.  His jokes were not always “politically correct,” but everyone always laughed at them.  Mostly, I suspect, because his joy in telling them was so obvious; he could barely get through a punchline without bursting into laughter.  Although it has been lost, he once made a tape (reel-to-reel, if anyone remembers pre-cassette and 8 track!) of several wonderful stories as he told them to his fascinated children.  Each one was unique and came straight out of his unfiltered imagination.

As his children moved away and began families of their own, he began a delightful tradition.  He sent cassette tapes of songs and stories and newsy chats.  He called them the “KMAC radio show” and they are still much treasured by all his children and grandchildren, who were often mentioned by name.  Sometimes, during a visit, he would allow the kids to sing or tell stories and they were delighted when those stories and songs appeared on the next KMAC tape!  My own grandchildren, although they never had the privilege of knowing him, still listen to old tapes.  One grandchild was so excited when he learned that “Fat Jack” was my dad and “Weather Person” was my mom!  He said, “Grammy!  That means you know famous people from the radio!”  He ran to tell his mom and was overjoyed to discover that he was also related to the “famous” radio people.  With a few tears, I reflected on how much my parents would have loved hearing that!

Dad passed away in 1996 followed by mom 2 years later.  Their legacy lives on in the lives of their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, who know the value of timing in a joke, imagination in  stories and familiarity in much repeated anecdotes.

How does this relate to my title?  Tell stories about things you remember; write about imaginary things that “could have” happened in your life; tell about your unique experiences (happy and sad); retell family anecdotes. Even if you have heard them too many times to count, someone in the world will appreciate hearing them.

Your story is out there: in your life and experiences, in your imagination and even in the experiences of your friends and family.  Now–go out there and share your stories with the world!

I currently have several books in progress: Snapshots, a book of family stories; Unnamed, a fantasy about standing up to bullies; and Animal Tails, a children’s book.  I have a published book about my experiences as a member of Search and Rescue: 911 ~ Missing Person! and also a children’s “retold” nursery rhyme: Tale of Tails.

 

My Writing Journey

I started writing in Junior high.  I wrote bad poetry and a few equally bad short stories, but didn’t share them at first.  In my freshman year, I was on the Yearbook staff and did have a few poems and a short-short story published (I can’t even remember the name of the story, but still have copies of the poems somewhere around! 🙂  I dreamed of becoming a teacher and teaching hundreds of eager little minds how to write properly formatted and punctuated stories.

In high school, unlike my non-nerdy friends, I LOVED writing themes in my (mostly) college track classes. I even wrote a very personal theme for my driver’s education teacher the year my brother died in an automobile accident when I was 16.

Then along came marriage and children and foster parenting.  I was busy!  But, my dream of becoming a teacher was still simmering and helping my husband, a custodian, made it awaken anew.  I told my husband I wanted to go to college and get a degree in education. After pointing out some obvious obstacles, like 4 children under five, no money, and the problem of having to move away from my beautiful house, he finally agreed if I could find money for tuition.  Back in those days, it wasn’t hard to find grants for school and between grants and tutoring other students on the side, I managed to get through and graduated from Oregon College of Education with a BS in Elementary Education.  My youngest child was then almost 5, so I spent the next two years running a preschool/kindergarten from my garage.  (I actually talk about that in some detail in my latest childcare resource book, Focus on Education , which is available on Amazon.com)

Then I began teaching children to write: over the next 30 years, I taught in many Childcare centers, private schools and finally Head Start until my retirement in 2015.  During my teaching career, I had many other volunteer positions, which is a subject for my next blog about where to get writing ideas.

My writing muse, kept at bay during college (except for all those term papers and such!), awoke with a roar when I was teaching my youngest to read.  He didn’t want to read “boring kid” books; he wanted to read adventures and mysteries.  Money was tight, but second-hand books stores abound and we bought many  books over the years my children were growing up.  At night, I would read short stories I had written during the day about when I was growing up and sometimes throw in a few “what if” scenarios to the less exciting parts.

Then, one day, I began writing a story about a club my friends and I had formed: The West Main Five.  (I’ll bet my readers can make an accurate guess as to the number of members and location!)  We had a lot of fun, but not really exciting to tell stories about the hollow spot in a tree where we sometimes left notes, unless…”What if?”  And a story was born: The Money Tree  also now available on Amazon.com. It was first published in 1999, while I was teaching a Kindergarten class.  I read the story to them and they were so impressed they told me I should write 100 books!